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Today it was finally time for the race to start. The team was up very early in the morning to get to the start line at the Torrens Parade ground in Adelaide. Once the car was unpacked from our trailer and prepared for racing there wasn't much for the team to do, aside from the strategists who were nutting out their plans for today. The sky was overcast, not making for good solar racing conditions.
Eventually it was time to put our driver in and start the race. He was left cooking in the car while the South Australian energy minister and various other dignitaries made their speeches. UNSW Sunswift II was waved away and joined a convoy of race cars, doing a loop through the city before heading out under a police escort.
Following the start of timing the first leg to Tarlee was fairly short. There was some concern about the handling and energy use of the car, but this was tracked down to a punctured tyre which was slowly deflating, and this was changed at the stop. Our tracker problems continue, and there was some frantic rewiring at the stop to try to get more power from the array.
The second leg to Burra was uneventful, though for a time the strategists were running without telemetry data. At this stop there was a bit more rewiring, but with half of our battery pack remaining we didn't expect any problems coming into Peterborough.
How wrong we were. About 20 km out of Peterborough we slowed, and then stopped by the side of the road to check our batteries. The last part of the leg was crawled up a long steady climb, before a final downhill run into the town. In the process we had to suffer the embarrassment of being overtaken by Chisolm, one of the electric vehicles.
In Peterborough we tried to get some charge into the batteries, pointing our array at whatever break we could see in the clouds. Andrew volunteered to stay with the array to watch it while the rest of us went in to the Peterborough town hall for dinner provided by the local Lions club. After that it was off to our caravan park, with most of us catching up on some desperately needed sleep.
Willy The Whale
Willy!
Mail Bag
If you have a question for the team, or would like to wish them well, write to our mail bag, care of Ask Willy. | | | |
